Rescue workers have found the smouldering wreckage of an Indonesian passenger jet that went missing during a storm, and officials say at least 90 people were killed.

The Boeing 737-400 Adam Air jet crashed in a mountainous region of Sulawesi island in the northeast of the country, Colonel Genot Hariyanto, the local police chief, said.

"The plane is destroyed and many bodies are around there," he said.
 
Indonesia’s Metro TV reported that the 12 were spotted by an initial search team but rescuers could not reach them because of heavy rains and hilly terrain. The 12 have not yet been identified. 
 
There were 96 passengers, including seven children and four infants, as well as six crew members on board.

The aircraft was on a domestic flight from Java island to Sulawesi when it lost contact with air traffic control late on Monday, about an hour before it was due to land, in very bad weather.

Hundreds of people gathered at Manado airport, the aircraft's destination. Some collapsed when they heard that 90 people had died, while others demanded information from the Adam Air office there, witnesses said.

Adam Air, one of about a dozen budget airlines in the world's fourth-most populous nation, operates 19 Boeing 737 jets. It started in December 2003 and serves dozens of domestic routes in Indonesia and also flies to Singapore.

On Tuesday, a Lion Air passenger jet skidded on a runway at the Pattimura airport in Ambon, eastern Indonesia, in heavy rain.

State news agency Antara said none of the passengers was reported hurt and the aircraft was not damaged.

Air travel in Indonesia, home to 220 million people, has grown substantially since the liberalisation of the airline industry after the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s.

Photo caption

Adam Air Check-in desk at sermarang airport